This Year's Tournament
Welcome to 2012 Click here for thoughts about this year's bracket Round 1, Monday (3/12) *11 am: Predictably, the Foo Fighters open the tournament by crushing Avenged Sevenfold, by not quite a 3:2 margin. One listener accidentally calls Pierre Preston, which starts a running gag throughout the day of calling him by the names of other DJs. Songs played: Everlong, Bat Country, Monkey Wrench, Seize the Day *12 pm: What the foos just missed, Metallica just barely made, scoring 61% in their opening match against the Beastie Boys. Songs played: Enter Sandman, Fight For Your Right, I Disappear, No Sleep Til Brooklyn *1 pm: Pierre's attempt at a gag ploy to earn votes for Yes, fails and Led Zeppelin cruises to victory over the surprise entry. Songs played: Over the Hills and Far Away, I've Seen all Good People, D'yer Maker, Owner of a Lonely Heart *2 pm: ZZ Top is no slouch, but they are no match for Pink Floyd, who wins with "somewhere in the high sixties." Songs played: Happiest Days / Brick in the Wall 2, Sharp Dressed Man, Run Like Hell, You Got Me Under Pressure *3 pm: While the 1/16 matches were all quite predictable, probably not many expected Seether to post a near-doubling on Dave Matthews Band, with 65%. Songs played: Country Song, What Would You Say, Gasoline, Ants Marching (Live) *4 pm: The Offspring blow away Guns'n'Roses and the flaming terd. Songs played: Welcome to the Jungle, Self Esteem, Mr. Brownstone, Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) *5 pm: Jimi Hendrix defeats Weezer comfortably. Songs played: Purple Haze, Buddy Holly, Crosstown Traffic, Hashpipe *6 pm: Disturbed gets by Lynyrd Skynyrd in a close one that certainly could have gone either way. Songs played: Down With the SIckness, Sweet Home Alabama, Another Way to Die, What's Your Name *7 pm: I wasn't able to witness this match's results, but the Facebook page simply says that Tool barely beat Rage Against the Machine. Seriously? This is Tool we're talking about. Songs played: Sober, Killing in the Name, The Pot, Bulls on Parade *8 pm: I didn't catch this one either, and the Facebook page simply says that Shinedown killed it. Thus, Breaking Benjamin becomes the first former champion to fall. Surprised? Neither am I. Songs played: ???, ???, Bully, So Cold *9 pm: Rather than going into overtime to settle a one-vote difference, Matt settled an incredibly close match between Alice in Chains and Iron Maiden by the last few phone votes he took. Iron Maiden swept them. Songs played: Man in the Box, Run to the Hills, Down in a Hole, Number of the Beast None of the matches up until 5 pm are a surprise at all. The only two I picked wrong, Distrubed and Iron Maiden, are not complete shocks to me. What is a shock is that the Tool match was reported as "close." Can we get some more info on this? Round 1, Tuesday (3/13) *11 am: Although it would have been a major upset, I would not have been surprised to hear that Cage the Elephant defeated Linkin Park. However that isn't what occurred, with LP taking 57% of the vote instead. Songs played: Bleed It Out, Ain't No Rest For the Wicked, One Step Closer, In One Ear *12 pm: For once, U2 starts off with an opponent that isn't Genesis, and defeats Coldplay fairly handily, winning by "about a hundred votes." Songs played: New Year's Day, Clocks, Desire, Viva La Vida *1 pm: No, instead, Genesis found a different unwitting victim to upset in round 1 this year. After starting out behind The Who by a fairly vast margin, Genesis gains the extra 7 percentage points to pull ahead after halftime and win. Songs played: Who Are You, The Lamb Lies Down Broadway, Long Live Rock, ??? *2 pm: The Hale siblings kept it closer than might have been expected, but Rush still knocks out Halestorm to earn a date with Iron Maiden next round. Songs played: Tom Sawyer, I Get Off, Free Will, Love Bites (And So Do I) *3 pm: Green Day wins the pop punk duel over Blink 182, but not nearly as handily as predicted. Songs played: Longview, What's My Age Again, American Idiot, Dammit *4 pm: STP holds on against Motley Crue, ensuring that the Crue become the first band in MMRch Madness history to fall to 0-7, but the Stones could be right behind them tomorrow. Songs played: Sex Type Thing, Dr. Feelgood, Vasoline, Wild Side *5 pm: In past years, Bob Marley has pulled off some really crazy upsets, but Godsmack was having none of it from the reggae mon, and said "This station belongs to ROCK musicians!" Honestly, I thought this would be a much tighter match. Songs played: Cry Like a Bitch, Buffalo Soldier, Whatever, Jamming *6 pm: Unsurprisingly, Tom Petty takes out newcomers The Black Keys. Songs played: Running Down a Dream, Lonely Boy, American Girl, Howling For You *7 pm: In an upset that feels completely out of left field, Bon Jovi drops to System of a Down. The Matt Kord Region just added a few new wrinkles. Songs played: You Give Love a Bad Name, Chop Suey, Runaway, Aerials *8 pm: In an extremely close match, Eric Clapton narrowly edges out Van Halen. Tool fans sigh at knowing the worst they could face in round four now is Stone Temple Pilots. Songs played: ???, Cocaine, Hot For Teacher, After Midnight *9 pm: After two upsets, in a round that featured one of the Rolling Stones' past defeators, there would be no upset. Aerosmith erases David Bowie. Songs played: Sweet Emotion, Rebel Rebel, Walk This Way, Suffragette City Round 1 & 2, Wedneday (3/14) *11 am: Despite apparently winning the phone vote, Bruce Springsteen was not the boss of Sublime on the text, and loses round one quite handily. Songs played: Born in the U.S.A., What I Got, Born to Run, Wrong Way *12 pm: Perennial losers Def Leppard live up to expectations by barely putting 40% on the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Songs played: Give It Away, Pour Some Sugar On Me, Aeroplane, Rock of Ages *1 pm: Pierre is quite grateful when The Grateful Dead holds on against The Doors. Post-match twirling ensues. God Bless. Songs played: Touch of Grey, Break on Through, Casey Jones, Love Her Madly *3 pm: The clown prince of randomness, Ozzy Osbourne, just barely staves off the advances of upstart Three Days Grace. Songs played: Crazy Train, Animal I Have Become, Flying High Again, The Good Life *4 pm: Nirvana continues in their trail of disappointment by dropping one to another 2-6 band, Incubus...who is now 3-6 vs. Nirvana's 2-7. Songs played: Rape Me, Pardon Me, ???, ??? *5 pm: Ozzy's other act can't quite hold it together long enough to defeat Soundgarden, and Black Sabbath drops a close one. Songs played: Paranoid, Spoonman, Sweet Leaf, Outshined *6 pm: IT'S A MIRACLE! PAINT THE TOWN BLACK! WE FINALLY HAVE SOME SATISFACTION! WE GOT WHAT WE NEED! The Rolling Stones are no longer Under the Thumb of the no-win category, when they finally achieve a modest victory against Stevie Ray Vaughn. Regardless of what happens from here on out, this might very well be the story of the entire tournament. Songs played: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Crossfire, Miss You, Pride and Joy *7 pm: In a match that wasn't really close, Queen defeats Nine Inch Nails. Songs played: Tie Your Mother Down, Head Like a Hole, Fat Bottomed Girls, Closer *8 pm: In the biggest blowout of the tournament, AC/DC wins over Nickelback with a poll of 72%. Songs played: Highway to Hell, How You Remind Me, Let There Be Rock, Burn it to the Ground *9 pm: The surprise entrant Eagles keep it surprisingly close to Pearl Jam. Is this strength for the Eagles, weakness for Pearl Jam, or just Philadelphia fans thinking they were voting on their football team? Songs played: Alive, Already Gone, rearviewmirror, Life in the Fast Lane *10 pm: A lone round 2 match ends the night, with Foo Fighters beating Seether comfortably. Too bad their next match will be against Tool... Songs played: My Hero, Fine Again, I'll Stick Around, Gasoline Round 2, Thursday (3/15) *11 am: Depite a minor comeback in the second half, Metallica defeats The Offspring. Songs played: Fade to Black, Come Out and Play (Keep 'em Separated), Fuel, Why Don't You Get a Job *12 pm: Led Zeppelin blows away Jimi Hendrix. Songs played: Over the Hills and Far Away, Foxey Lady, Misty Mountain Hop, Voodoo Child/Slight Return *1 pm: Pink Floyd handles Disturbed. Songs played: Empty Spaces/Y oung Lust, Down With the Sickness, Learning to Fly, Stupify *2 pm: Although the phone vote was close, Tool douses U2 in a landslide of text votes. Songs played: Vicarious, Beautiful Day, Schism, Bullet the Blue Sky *3 pm: Genesis won one surprising upset, but they can't manage a second against Shinedown. Songs played: If You Only Knew, Invisible Touch, Sound of Madness, Just a Job to Do *4 pm: Rush parlays a text vote advantage into a victory against the troopers, Iron Maiden. Songs played: Run to the Hills, Limelight, The Trooper, Subdivisions *5 pm: In what could have been a close match, Green Day is unable to keep apace with Linkin Park. Songs played: Somewhere I Belong, Basket Case, Crawling, Brain Stew/Jaded *6 pm: Pulling off a second surprise in two straight da ys, Eric Clapton narrowly defeats Stone Temple Pilots to advance to round three! Songs played: Wicked Garden, Pretending, Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart, Let it Raid *7 pm: Close matches are the theme of the night, but last year's champion, Aerosmith, falls to one of the power bands of the 00's, Godsmack. Songs played: Whatever, Love in an Elevator, Voodoo, Back in the Saddle *8 pm: In a squeaker, Tom Petty wins by a margin of eight votes against Sublime. Songs played: Refugee, What I Got, Jammin' Me, Doin' Time *9 pm: In a late-night shocker, System of a Down defeats RHCP to advance to round 3. Songs played: Aerials, Give it Away, Toxicity, By the Way Round 2 & 3, Friday (3/16) *11 am: Pierre's absence on account of a shift swap with Jaxon deterred deadheads a bit, but not enough to keep The Grateful Dead from beating The Rolling Stones with 52%. Songs played: Good Lovin, Start Me Up, Scarlet Begonias, Bitch *12 pm: Queen lives up to their 2 seed and wins going away against Ozzy Osbourne. Songs played: Flying High Again, Bohemian Rhapsody, Bark at the Moon, Under Pressure *1 pm: AC/DC is known for folding in the face of a quality opponent, but they haven't faced one yet, as they splatter Incubus against the wall. Songs played: Megalomaniac, You Shook Me All Night Long, Nice to Know You, Thunderstruck *2 pm: Soundgarden did actually manage to take a very early lead, but it dissipated, as Pearl Jam fans came roaring back. All told, it was still a respectable 53-47 loss for Cornell in the battle for Seattle. Songs played: Burden in My Hand, Alive, My Wave, Glorified G *3 pm: Hold the presses! One of the four bracket bosses has lost, and the first to fall this year is...Tool!?!? This marks the first time Tool will NOT make the Great Eight; for that matter their streak of four Favorite Four appearances is snapped. You can blame the Foo Fighters, who win with 52%. Songs played: Walk, The Pot, I'll Stick Around, Forty-Six and 2 *4 pm: The only thing that can ever defeat Metallica is the listeners themselves. And indeed, that is precisely what happened, when an "out with the old" campaign mounted to put Shinedown ahead of the great 80's band. Down to two bosses! Songs played: ???, Save Me, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Bully (MMR Studio Session version) *5 pm: Rush made a valiant effort to make it three in a row for the little guys, but ran out of gas and were overwhelmed by Led Zeppelin after halftime. Songs played: Ramble On, The Spirit of Radio, Closer to the Heart, 2112 *6 pm: And Pink Floyd held on as well against Linkin Park. I'm a little upset at Jason here. He was making a push to see Linkin Park lose so we would have an all-new Favorite Four compared to last year, completely oblivious to the fact that Pink Floyd is the much more important band to out if you want to mount a spring cleaning of the bracket considering they've won, and made four appearances to the Favorite Four. They would have last year, except for lolaerosmith. Songs played: In the Flesh, Bleed It Out, Run Like Hell, What I've Done *7 pm: Pierre's shift swap with Jaxon has its full effect realized, as The Grateful Dead's match they should have lost on account of being Pierre-free has been parlayed into a win. Then again, I doubt anyone was expecting their opponent here to be Eric Clapton, either. They get an 11 am match on Monday, so they'll probably win that, too. *8 pm: God smack the Queen! Wait , that isn't how it goes...but that's precisely what happened tonight, as Godsmack has defeated Queen 53-47. Songs played: Cry Like a Bitch, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, ???, ??? *9 pm: The heartland rocker can't handle the thunder from down under. Historically, AC/DC folds against a decent opponent, but today they have defeated Tom Petty. Songs played: American Girl, Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap), Rebels, Shot Down in Flames *10 pm: In a late night thriller between the top tier 2 band in the land and a bizarre evening-only Cinderella run, the match between Pearl Jam and System of a Down is pushed into OVERTIME! During the final two matches, PJ haters smelled blood in the water and had a feeding frenzy, pushing SoaD to the top. Songs played: Chop Suey, Even Flow, B.Y.O.B., Why Go, Toxicity, Spin the Black Circle (seriously? StBC?) Great Eight, Monday (3/19) *11 am: The Grateful Dead don't know how to lose a match early in the day, so it came as a huge shock when it was announced that the Foo Fighters have continued in their blaze of glory after defeating Tool on Friday. Pierre is devastated. Songs played: My Hero, Good Lovin', Times Like These, Shakedown Street *12 pm: The battle for the MMR-B-Q wasn't even close! Shinedown laid the smackdown on Godsmack. The DJs reported the margin at 67%, which would indicate a huge amount of phone support for Shinedown...or an error. Songs played: Heroes, Cry Like a Bitch, Diamond Eyes (Boom-Lay Boom-Lay Boom), Keep Away *1 pm: Historically, AC/DC's ru n each year ends when they meet a strong contender, and by strong I mean like Bon Jovi-strong. So little was expected of them in a match against Led Zeppelin! Surprisingly, they made a match of it, and lost by votals in the double digits after "thousands of votes." Songs played: Heartbreaker/Livin Lovin Maid, For Those About to Rock, Good Times Bad Times, Givin the Dog a Bone *2 pm: One wouldn't have expected this match to be close, but who was expecting System of a Down to beat BJ, RHCP, and PJ? Move this match to 7 pm and I bet they would have made a game of it. Still, despite all the root-for-the-underdog support, Pink Floyd is simply too strong to contend with. Besides, an "Essential A-Z" of SoaD would be like four songs anyway. They only played three different ones throughout four matches. Songs played: Brain Damage/Eclipse, Chop Suey!, One of These Days, Aerials *3 pm: (SEMIFINAL A) The first semi-final went back and forth the whole way, including through an extended match that included a commercial break and then a third song from each band. Jaxon and Kristen reported that the lead reversed on the text numerous times, and it took them a short while to count the phone votes and determine who won because it was too close to simply call. In the end, Foo Fighters emerge over Shinedown in an incredibly close match. Songs played: Best of You, I Dare You, All My Life, Simple Man, Monkey Wrench, Fly From the Inside *4 pm: (SEMIFINAL B) Th ey didn't even start in the same regions this year, and yet for a fifth year out of seven, we end up with a Led Zeppelin vs Pink Floyd grudge match. (It would have been six if not for Aerosmith's bandwagon last year. Only when Skynyrd took out Zeppelin in 2007 did we completely dodge this bullet.) So instead of the 70's Region at stake, instead it was the entire right side of the bracket. It was an understandably close match that went wire to wire, but the only year Zeppelin has won this match was the year when Pink Floyd wore the mantle of "past champion" and Zeppelin did not. This year was no different, with Pink Floyd getting the edge. Songs played: ???, Money, Ramble On, Breathe, Rock and Roll, Have a Cigar *5 pm: (CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH) After one round of exchange, Jaxon's remark was that Pink Floyd fans had better get it into gear, because the Foo Fighters were starting to run away with it. Indeed, although the urgency was less severe at the second exchange, the Foos still had the lead. One commercial break and a Foo Fighters song later, and it was suddenly announced that the match was painfully close, so it seemed Pink Floyd had successfully mounted a comeback, and in the margin of one remaining song it was quite plausible that they would overtake the Foo Fighters for the lead. However, it was the FF fans who battled back at the end instead, giving the championship to the Foo Fighters! Songs played: Everlong, Comfortably Numb, I'll Stick Around, Learning to Fly (PF), Learn to Fly (Foo), Wish You Were Here Foo Fighters A to Z: All My Life, Alone and Easy Target, Back and Forth, Baker Street, Band on the Run, Best of You, Big Me, Breakout, Bridge Burning, Darling Nikki, Dear Rosemary, For all the Cows, Have a Cigar, Hey Johnny Park, I Feel Free, I'll Stick Around, Learn to Fly, Let it Die, Long Road to Ruin, Low, Monkey Wrench, My Hero, Next Year, No Way Back, Rope, Stacked Actors, The One, The Pretender, These Days, This is a Call, Times Like These, Walk, Walking After You, Wheels, White Limo, X-Static Category:Current Events